It was a strange, weird scene, the vessel wavering above us; the flashing lights; waving beams of radiance. A fantastic structure nearby reared itself several hundred feet with lights on top and outlining its many lateral balconies one above the other. The air was full of the leaping, swimming insect-like figures. The brains, the masters, were not in evidence; then I saw one of them being carried, and others, floating down like distended falling balloons, to be caught by the workers in small nets and thus saved from jarring contact.
Snap was suddenly whispering: "That fellow back of us is our guard. I can feel his ray. Some form of attraction; it's pulling at me."
Snap was a little behind me. I turned and saw the faint radiance of a narrow light-beam upon him. It came from an instrument in an upper shoulder hand of the insect figure following us, no doubt the reverse form of the same ray which had been used to thrust the wrecked Cometara toward the Moon.
We reached the bottom. I saw now that the group of workers in advance of us were carrying metal cubes, seemingly of considerable weight; they also had to use the incline.
We stood presently on a smooth ground surface. We had not seen Anita and Venza, nor Molo and his sister. The insect figure who was our guard came forward. "You stand here. Molo comes."
"Where is he?" I demanded. "I want to see him." I stopped myself quickly; I had very nearly mentioned the girls. "And talk with him."
"He comes soon."
"I'm hungry." I gestured to my stomach. "Food. You know what that is?"
The brown scaly face contorted for a smile, a ghastly grimace. "Yes. You shall have food and drink."
It seemed that the hollow voice came not from the neck but from the shell-like, bulging chest. He stood aside, with the globular weapon of the ray in a pincer hand.